By Maahin Akhlaque.
Nicholas Cage films seems to come and go without much notice, and I don’t tend to watch them, so I don’t think I’m the intended audience for his latest, Dying of the Light, however it could speak to some audience members.
Cage stars as Evan Lake, an aging CIA agent, who, having been forced to be on a desk rather than out in the field for years, is pushed into early retirement after it is discovered he has a condition called frontotemporal dementia. At the same time his protege, Melvin (Anton Yelchin) discovers a lead on a man Lake was once after, thought to be dead for twenty-two years. The two of them go rogue, setting of in search of his man, so Lake can do what he tried to all those years ago.
The concept behind the plot is quite interesting, a CIA agent with a serious illness that effects the brain, pursuing a man who is sick himself, but with a different kind of disease. Going somewhere with his idea of them both being ill but one in his mind and the other his blood seems to have been thought about, but forgotten to be explored. Or it just went completely over my head. It would have made the film have quite different feel, which could have been a good thing, as in its current form, it’s nothing special. At least it takes the ageing spy thing a lot more seriously than the RED films for example, (or even the last Bond outing, Skyfall, with all its jokes about how Daniel Craig is getting on a bit). A bad old man joke would have completely undone anything good the film does do.
Nicholas Cage deals with portraying a rare form of dementia pretty well, considering it’s probably harder to research than the better known forms of dementia and Alzheimer’s. He doesn’t over do it, but the struggle the character has is there. I do wonder if ageing his looks was actually necessary. Anton Yelchin is the only other actor to get any proper screen time, but even in that his character doesn’t do much at all.
Dying of the Light starts with a good idea, and has potential to be something quite interesting, but actually doesn’t really go anywhere, which is a shame. It is particularly low on action as well, something that you might expect a fair bit of in a film of its genre. While its not necessary to be one to find something to appreciate in this, it’s certainly more likely to connect with a die-hard Nic Cage fan.
Dying of the Light is out January 2nd 2015.
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